Tracking Your Investment Options Data

· options data

Investing for your future can be overwhelming. Whether for retirement, your children’s college education, weddings, or even just having savings for potential emergencies, it can be hard to decide what to invest in (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, hedge funds, real estate, etc) and how much to invest (a large sum annually, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, etc). But once you have started investing the tricky aspect switches to tracking your investment options data and information. Not only do you want to make sure the investments you have are bringing in positive returns, but you want to see if some investments are doing better or worse than others. Also, you want to make sure you are tracking your investments so you don’t forget about them over time. Here are some investment tracking options for your investment data.

Software On Your Computer

There used to be a program called Microsoft Money. This program organized all of your finances and even connected to the internet to pull current stock information to give you the best idea of where your money is at all times. However, this program was cancelled in 2009. With the loss of this program, investors had to find other options for options data tracking.

If you have been around any finance department or accounting department of a business or talked with an accountant, you have heard of QuickBooks. QuickBooks manages finances and accounting for businesses, but it can be used to organize your investment options data and track your money and finances. QuickBooks is traditionally a software based program, but has made leaps into online software (cloud based) in more recent years with QuickBooks Online. The online version has varying price points to allow for the program to be used by a variety of investors.

Online Services and Online Softwares

Just like QuickBooks is moving to an online, cloud based platform, there are a variety of online services and softwares available. Mint.com, Morningstar.com, Personal Capital, and Client Portals are just a few of the online services and softwares available. Mint.com, Morningstar.com and Personal Capital are online services and softwares that allow you to track your finances through integrations with other programs and services or through manual input. Many brokers and financial advisors have their own online Client Portals that allow clients to track their data and finances.

Investments with Spreadsheets

A more manual way to track your investment data options is with spreadsheets. A more traditional approach is with Microsoft Excel, and a more modern method is with Google Sheets. While Microsoft Excel is a more well-known method, Google Sheets allows for easy access across any device without a subscription. Microsoft Excel does have a cloud based version that is accessed with a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 with an annual subscription. Google Sheets does not require the subscription, but does require a Google Login via Gmail or other Google program.

Regardless of the software or service option you choose, the important element is that you track your investment options data. Without proper tracking your hard earned money and the time you spent investing could be wasted.